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Richard Wilson will be reaching the rather grand old age of 77 this summer â€" not that it matters to him.
He is, you see, a rather wondrous character who cocks a snook at the passing of time.
He exercises daily, swims regularly and is a patron of more charities than there are days in the week.
Right now he’s working all the hours God sends directing Keith Allen and Denise Welch in the brilliant Richard Bean’s Smack Family Robinson at the Rose Theatre in Kingston, Surrey.
Richard Wilson is a dashing gent of a man with an OBE for services to his profession and a reputation as a thoroughly nice bloke
Add to this his work as an associate director at Sheffield Theatres and I’m beginning to wonder how he finds the energy for anything other than a cup of Horlicks at the end of the day.
We meet in a lively café in London’s leafy Hampstead, close to his garden flat.
Richard, remembered fondly by millions as the nation’s favourite misanthrope, Victor Meldrew from the hugely successful BBC sitcom One Foot In The Grave, also starring Annette Crosbie, is single and has been for many years.
This single-for-many-years thing has given some to euphemistically refer to him as ‘a confirmed bachelor.’ Confirmed? Codswallop.
‘I still don’t rule out a relationship,’ he says. ‘Anna Massey [the award- winning actress who sadly died of cancer 18 months ago] was a very close friend of mine. She lived alone, as I did, for years and then suddenly she met this older Ru ssian scientist [Uri Andres].
'Anna had a very regimented life. Everything had to be just so but she was swept away and they got married. It was such a wonderful change. I thought, “This will never last.†The marriage actually lasted 21 years and Uri was with her at her death.
‘I do find the fact that I don’t have a relationship quite strange,’ he continues. ‘Sometimes I think it’s just the way I’ve ended up and it doesn’t worry me particularly. Other times, yes it does. But sometimes, no, I just love the...’
The sentence trails off and he continues to fiddle with a teaspoon on the table between us. There’s a sense in which he seems to long for a deep, loving relationship, but is wary of commitment. Has he, I wonder, ever been deeply hurt?
‘Yes and no,’ he says. ‘I had a very long relationship with a doctor when I was at Paddington General. [Richard worked as a hospit al lab technician before applying to RADA at the age of 27.] I think if I’d stayed with her I might not have become an actor.
‘That was a very important relationship because there was this class thing between a doctor and a technician but that wasn’t important to her. I suppose it’s fair to say that I haven’t had a relationship like that since.’
Richard, remembered fondly by millions as the nation's favourite misanthrope, Victor Meldrew from the hugely successful BBC sitcom One Foot In The Grave
Which takes us back to this ‘confirmed bachelor’ thing.
Richard has long campaigned for gay rights, but never spoken about his sexuality. It is, after all, nobody else’s business. But, recently, he was placed at number 80 on Time Out’s list of influential gay people. It was, he says, ‘the most blatant outing.’
‘I don’t mind people saying I’m gay, because I am,’ he says. ‘But I don’t live in a gay relationship. That [being single] is probably why I go to counselling,’ he continues. ‘I think when I changed professions it was at a time I should have been settling down or not settling down with someone, and I just didn’t seem to have time for that.
‘Becoming an actor at 27 was a big change â€" a big psychological change, a big physical change. I was suddenly prancing around in leotards and fencing and doing gymnastics â€" things I’d nev er done before. I was acting all the time and that took up all my time. So, I look on the fact I don’t have a relationship...’ Again, the sentence trails off.
Now Richard has been in and out of counselling for many years. ‘I think it’s a really positive thing to do,’ he says. ‘I think we all need someone to talk to just to get things off your chest.’ He was a skinny, awkward child who was ‘always convinced nothing was going to work out’.
Today, he’s a fleshier, dashing gent of a man in yellow cashmere with an OBE for services to his profession and a reputation as a thoroughly nice bloke, but he remains painfully shy, rarely venturing out of his flat without a pair of glasses and a cap.
‘There’s no doubt Victor’s popularity is not what it was,’ he says. ‘But if I go out without a cap and sunglasses they recognise me more. Because I was a shy per son I had to talk to people much more and sometimes they were very interesting so I quite liked it â€" that opened me out more.
‘But there are times when you just don’t want to waste time. Like I was late coming up here today and there was this man sitting on a bench who said, “Oh Richard, I haven’t seen you for ages.†I had no idea who he was.
‘I said, “Yes, hi. I’m late.†He said, “Yeah, just a minute...†Richard shakes his head. ‘Some people are very rude.
'They think they own you â€" drag you across pubs to introduce you to someone else.’ Having spent little less than an hour with this lovely, sensitive man, I understand the agonies this must cause him. Particularly given how often fans of the show hound him with the classic ‘I don’t believe it’ catchphrase.
Richard, who won a best director award for directing black comedy Mr Kolpert at London's Royal Court Theatre, started directing during his days on One Foot In The Grave
Richard was in his mid-50s when he was asked to play Victor. ‘I turned them down initially because I thought I was too young. I didn’t see myself playing an older version of myself. Victor was 60. I thought, “I’m not playing pensioners†â€" although he wasn’t a pensioner, he was made redundant. Of course, they very rightly persuaded me to do it.’
Did he like Victor? ‘Oh yes. I was going to say I loved him. But I was getting a bit tired of him by the end. When the writer, David Renwick, said he was going to kill him, I thought, “Yeah, I think that’s probably a good idea.†Victor was actually mown down by a hit-and-run driver in series ten at the age of 70. Six years younger than Richard is now.
‘Victor changed my life,’ he says. ‘He changed me in terms of financial security for a start. It changed me in terms of being a celebrity and dealing with the negative side of that.
'There was also a plus side. Through Victor I became rector of Glasgow University and it got me into all sorts of interesting areas. I got used to the catchphrase and it didn’t worry me.’
We’re actually here to discuss Smack Family Robinson, a black comedy about a family of drug dealers and which writer Richard Bean, author of the West End hit One Man, Two Guvnors, approached him to direct ‘out of the blue’. It’s a hilarious script.
‘The mother’s got a florist shop and they launder the money through the shop,’ Richard explains. ‘She says, “It’s the only florist south-east of the Thames with a £3 million turnover.†He’d written it for Newcastle and he’s now adapted it for Kingston. I said, “Are you sure there are smack dealers in Kingston?â€
'Becoming an actor at 27 was a big change - a big psychological change', he says
‘He said, “There are smack dealers everywhere.†I’ve now discovered there’s a drug rehabilitation centre next to the theatre.’ The catchphrase ‘I don’t believe it’ is written on his face.
Richard, who won a best director award for directing black comedy Mr Kolpert at London’s Royal Court Theatre, started directing during his days on One Foot In The Grave. ‘I never intended to be a director.
'That was the last thought I had in my mind. But I started doing a bit of directing at the Stables Theatre in Manchester [when One Foot In the Grave was being broadcast] and I got the bug.
'I loved doing new plays especially. But I never wanted to stop acting. I wouldn’t want the pressure of going from one play to another as a director. I don’t think I’ve ever directed a play where at some stage I didn’t think, “Why am I doing this?†or that it’s not going as well as I think it should.
‘You really can’t do comedy unless there’s some darkness, some reality there too. That’s always been my mantra. But fortunately I live a fairly equanimous life. My darkness is just being a bit fed up, just being in the doldrums.’
Richard grew up with a sister, Moira, in a council flat in Greenock outside Glasgow where his father, an elder in the Presbyterian Church, worked as a timekeeper in a shipyard on the Clyde.
He ‘got his first sniff of greasepaint’ at primary school where he played the king in the Princess And The Pea and discovered he could make people laugh, but, it wasn’t the sort of upbringing in which you aspired to be an actor. ‘They’d have said I was a big Jessie,’ he laughs.
So when he moved to London to ‘see live theatre and cinema’ he took a job as a laboratory te chnician at Paddington General and was working there when his mother Euphemia, a lovely, lively soul, died of a brain tumour.
‘She was 57. I remember thinking when I became 57, “My mother died at this age. Awful.†Now 57 is young. It was a terrible shock because she’d never been ill before. Suddenly to have a brain tumour was horrendous.
‘My father and I went in the ambulance with her from our local hospital to the specialist hospital. We stopped off to pick up someone else on the way there. I remember thinking, “That was valuable time.†They operated but they were too late. Within a few days she died.’ He shakes his head.
‘The thing about my mother was that she always said, “When I go, I don’t want any mourning. Just get on with it.†So when I left Greenock to go back to London I took my black tie off and never wore it again. Looking back, it probab ly was more traumatic than I thought, but I remember thinking at the time that a lot of mourning is selfishness because there’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t reverse anything.
‘I found it very difficult to talk about. There was a chap from Greenock staying in the same house as me in London. We were going for a pint one night and the radio was on in the background. They played Handel’s Largo, which they played at my mother’s funeral.
'I said to him, “Sorry, I don’t like this.†That night I just told him the whole experience over a few pints. That was a huge catharsis.’
His father has since died, but he remains close to his sister. ‘She was always talking about the great life I led,’ he says. ‘I said, “Listen, you were always brighter than me.
'You decided to settle down and get married.†I suppose acting is what got me out of G reenock. Looking at a lot of my friends, they are still there and I’m still in touch with them.
‘There are a lot of people who are in relationships and are envious of my freedom. The thing about acting is the highs are wonderful and exciting â€" but there’s no constant green grass. Does that make sense?’
Well, Richard, let’s just say I do believe it. I truly do.
Richard Wilson directs Smack Family Robinson at the Rose Theatre, Kingston, Surrey, from 28 March. For tickets, tel: 08444 821556 or visit www.rosetheatrekingston.org
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